Race 6 : Hen and Cock

12th May 2005

McKibben storms to the 2005 title, Sandford smashes record

It is summer at last - at least while the sky was clear and the sun was shining. A beautiful evening greeted the 112 runners who showed up at Hen Car Park near Hilltown for the sixth race of the 2005 Blue Lough (www.mountainandwater.com) Hill & Dale Race Series. A real hill race this with statistics 2.75 miles and 1,700 feet of climbing taking in the classic mountains of Hen and Cock on the southern end of the Mournes near Hilltown.

On the word of this week's race organiser, Frank Morgan, the field set off and straight into the first back breaking climb to the crags at the top of Hen. 6 minutes and 45 seconds later Alan McKibben reached the summit closely followed by Deon McNeilly. McNeilly's season so far has been a bit up and down (pardon the pun) and he knew that he had to win to stop McKibben taking the title with six straight wins. Behind, Newcastle AC's Stevie Cunningham is starting to come through to great form and he had climbed strongly and on the descent off Hen joined the two leaders.

Meanwhile, the women were being led out by the pure strength climbing of Anne Sanford. Sandford comes into her own on steep ground like this and tonight was to be no exception. Behind her, club mate Alwynne Shannon, now getting a few races strung together was also climbing strongly. In the junior section with no Jonathan McCloy this week, fast improving Adam Mitten was also showing well up early.

Onto the climb of Cock and McKibben, now with vest off and tucked into his shorts, was bent double just doing enough to keep McNeilly at bay. McKibben reached the top of Cock a mere 12 minutes after reaching the top of Hen, awesome running. The descent is fast and runs into boggy ground towards the bottom. McKibben is a competitor to match the instincts of McNeilly and once again McNeilly surged and, as they reached the top of Hen on the way back in less than 8 minutes from the top of Cock, McNeilly was back with McKibben.

Not the smoothest of ground, the drop off Hen, but that didn't stop the two protagonists flying down and inside two and a half minutes from the top of Hen, a sprinting McKibben broke the tape to win the race and the series with six straight wins - can he win all eleven races? Behind, McNeilly finished a clear second with a season's best race from Cunningham in third.

The fastest descender of them all, ACKC's Gary Bailey was just under half a minute behind Cunningham in fourth place with North Belfast's Neil Carty next in fifth ahead of Ed Hanna, home in just two seconds over the half hour.

Sandford stayed well ahead and worked hard descending, as well as on the climbs to come home in 36 minutes and 42 seconds to knock 12 seconds off her own race record from last year. Sandford is going from strength to strength as she focuses on the World Masters Mountain Racing Championships that come round in September in the Lake District in England. Behind, Shannon was second nearly two minutes back followed by Kerry Harty to make it a clean sweep for Newcastle AC just as in the men's race.

Veteran honours went to Albertville's Billy McKay, first veteran 50 in an excellent 14th place overall in 32 minutes and 6 seconds. BARF's Jim Brown took his first vet45 win of the season 46 seconds further back with Ricky Cowan first vet55 in 39 minutes 16. Larne's Billy Magee once again won the vet60 section in 48th overall in 38 minutes and 8 seconds.

Unsung heroes

As well as Frank Morgan, who has not seen the sharp end of a fell race for decades, but turns up nearly every race to manage start and finish operations, there are many others who ensure the safe passage of the masses who turn up every week.

At the summit of Cock this week were the infamous duo of grandson and grandfather McNeilly. The latter is well known for his lack of patience for sheer stupidity - common sense is not so common these days. This week, however, passed off without real incident, save for the fact that McNeilly Senior was nearly on his own for a pint of blackcurrant at Doran's near Hilltown before being rescued and ushered on to Downey's in Rathfriland, where the gathered crowd were already enjoying his free-range egg sandwiches. On the summit of Hen, Mark Hanna, saw all the runners through on the way out inside 15 minutes, but it was a long, long and even longer wait for the final runner to return nearly 70 minutes after the start. Patience and plenty of warm clothes is what a summit marshal needs - even this Thursday it got very cold very quickly as the sun sank to the horizon and the east wind chilled the bones. Thanks go out to the likes of Mark, Billy & Wills, who week in week out help out for nothing other than the love of the mountains and the sport.

Talking of chilling the bones, Paula Radcliffe set the trend for iced baths to reduce the inflammation in the damage done to the legs and ankles after a hard race. Stories of visits to the fish market in Limerick when she is visiting Ger Hartmann the famous physio, to pick up bags of ice are one thing. Not to be beaten, witness the intrepid band of Newcastle runners sitting and standing in the mountain river at the Hen Car Park on Thursday night. Herd-like behaviour it might be, but as the last drop of feeling left the feet and one by one each retired to the car to change the clothes, there was a sense that, as it hurt so much, it must be good for you. The pain of the race had turned into the pain of the cold. Who claims that these runners are not eccentric?

Race seven this Thursday returns to Tollymore Forest Park with the infamous finish up the grassy slope. If you want to enjoy the race, please be there to register by 7pm. If you want to watch some real suffering get to Tollymore Car Park by 7.25pm and watch for free.

BOGBOY